Maintaining a New Balance

No images to share tonight, but there should be something soon. Give it a few days, if it's a sketch. Longer if a drawing.

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I once met a Laurie who worked at Nike (she teased me for wearing a competitor's brand). This was in a life drawing class. I've known Lauries and Lores and Loris...and while I'm not certain that Laurie from Nike spelled her name that way, Lori and I decided from the photo that she looked like a Laurie.

I started that drawing, too, but got the space relationship of her pose wrong. Obsession with perfection, check.

That photo is tonight one in a file of photos I want to draw in the near future. Yes, still just copying other people's photos, but at least that's a personal one. Though I question the artistic merit involved, now isn't the time to fret over it. Lemme just get there again first.

I spent some time compiling that file and making preliminary marks on paper for placing my subjects. I'm nearly there, but it's three in the morning and I'm dead tired. Need to sleep. Today, most;ly I fought with placing a pair of eyes in a clay sculpture of a head, roughly 1/5^th scale. I've attempted sculpts before, but always the body. The results were like some mad scientists nightmarish rejects. This is my first head. I've amassed a number of paper models of figures for physical references of shapes to copy, and I've a book on anatomy that I hope will help. But I struggled today because that “nearly' 1/5^th wasn't nearly enough that the eyes I baked were large enough. Still, she does look...humanoid. Eerie, even, if she were a real person you'd stare and her with a chill down your spine trying to figure out what's so freakin' creepy about her eyes. They're just too small, that's all, and makes not place correctly wherever I situate them.

I also did a little work on a scale replica of a vehicle from an old science fiction Tv show. I've always wanted one and I like the idea of making my own from scratch. I'm using thin wooden dowels, cardstock, and balsa strips. Early stages, still just starting the structure. I don't have blueprints that are complete or accurate. Not a huge problem.

All of which is to say...well, hell. It takes less energy to do all of that than to sit down and draw. It's energy I didn't have today. I suppose mostly it's mental or psychological reserve I'm talking about.

There's a woman I have been wanting to reconnect with for the longest time. She means the world to me. I've been posting on Facebook since earlier this year hoping it would lead us to each other. Almost three weeks ago I sent her a friend request. I did get a response, sort of...she nuked her FB page. I can imagine reasons why that might not mean “go die”, like just making sure she has the space to process my suddenly appearing again...but that's ten percent hope and ninety percent recognizing that she's gone, and it's over. And...I'm doing what I can to deal with it. The wound doesn't heal, I can only keep the pain at bay.

The work can do that for hours at a time. I have good days, I can laugh with friends. I am not broken, but I am heartbroken and the idea of putting on a clown show pretending everything's peachy is loathsome to me. I can't vent on FB, no one there wants to hear it. It's drama. You didn't ask for it either but (a) it's apropos to the subject and (b) it's my fuckin' page!

I mean...that's kinda the point of the whole blog, not just resurrect myself but to stay sane.  And, maybe, give a little look at the process.  Dealing with emotional shit is part of it in a number of ways.  It can sap your energy (damn, does it ever do that for me!), but if you can find your way to the zone the work feeds you and helps to heal.  The more expressive artists find that emotional lows guide their choices.

So the only thing to do is to “Just do it”. Get on with it. That's what artists do. Don't think about it. Don't keep putting obstacles in your own path, don't complicate it. Don't obsess the details to the point it's impossible to continue. Just do it.

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I will have images to post, soon enough, but I've decided that it's a bad move to rush a drawing or a sketch just to have something to post. There's a strong chance a commission is coming my way very soon, in which case everything else will be taking a lower priority. I'm ready for the challenge, I've bought plenty of 0.3mm 2B lead refills, will have to see what size drawing paper is needed (a break in the heat is expected this weekend so a run to Michael's is in the offing).